


let's take a new path this time

by glowingjellyfishtreelights



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Slow To Update, Time Travel, deviations start from first chapter bc the author has no patience and neither does edward elric, multiple people time traveling, no-alchemy ed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-10-10 06:37:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20523590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glowingjellyfishtreelights/pseuds/glowingjellyfishtreelights
Summary: See, here’s the thing- at first, when Ed wakes up to a scene from his nightmares, he assumes it’s- well, just a scene from his nightmares.... Yeah, no. Things are a bit more complicated than that.





	1. actions have consequences but this is not one to regret

**Author's Note:**

> warning for like the whole first half of this thing for much blood and injury/alchemy mishap unpleasantness bc y'know. lost limb. failed mother transmutation. that is all.

See, here’s the thing- at first, when Ed wakes up to a scene from his nightmares, he assumes it’s- well, just a scene from his nightmares. 

… A very, very lucid one. 

Admittedly, it started at a very strange spot. Normally there’s a lot more screaming, alchemic light, Al and Mom and frequently Nina all blurring and distorting and being ripped apart, Truth’s multi-voiced laughter vibrating through their wails and moans and tiny grabbing hands shredding apart his body while the thing they made gurgles through lungs punctured by inside-out ribs.

There was no screaming,this time, for once. A few last dying spurts of alchemic sparks, the wheezes of their failed transmutation in the middle of the circle. The crash of Al’s armor falling to the ground had resonated in his head for years, but it was already down, helmet lying discarded to the side, no marks on the inside.

It was… unsettlingly quiet, really. It didn’t feel _ right _\- he knew he lived through this before- but he remembered it more as a mess of noise and colors and not in how he could feel the light burning itch of staying awake all last night reading books in his eyes, the cold texture of the basement against his palms and knee and elbow-

_ Wait. _

_ Knee? _

It was then that Ed made the very big mistake of moving in an attempt to look at his own legs.

Very. Big. Mistake.

  


The pain slams into him out of nowhere with all the force of a battering ram, and the blood dripping from his leg (missing from right above the knee what else was he even expecting) is suddenly both incredibly bright and dull at the same time and it’s tacky and warm all over his hands and where he falls into it and he should be waking up. This is where he should be waking up, when the pain spikes up and jolts him out of the dream because it’s a incoming storm messing with his joints and port or something and _ why isn’t he waking up _ why is he feeling everything so vividly why does everything feel so real-

A scrap of paper flutters nearby and his eye snags on two messily scrawled names, **Edward Elric ** and **Alphonse Elric**-

_ Oh God _

_ This isn’t a dream _

  


_______________________ 

  


There’s plenty of blood on the floor to draw a bloodseal, and plenty still leaking from the mangled stump of Ed’s leg, even through the bandage. Tacking Al’s soul to the armor is technically the tactically soundest move, in a time-travel situation- there’s Homunculi and crazy alchemists and _ Father _ sitting pretty and waiting out there in the world all over again, needing to be taken down-

Yeah, no. Ed doesn’t even think of that for a second. Not even close.

No, Ed’s absolute first thought when he can form them again is the absolutely ground-shaking revelation that here, right now, somehow eleven years old on the worst night of his life all over again, gasping into the basement floor of the house he and his brother burned to the ground years ago, he can prevent _ years _ of Al’s suffering.

Ed still has his arm. Alphonse isn’t in the armor. _ Alphonse’s body and soul are still together, in the Gate _.

Ed doesn’t even bother hesitating. 

It’s been almost four years since he lost his alchemy, but that doesn’t matter. Alchemy was always something different for him- something natural, another extension of his senses, like breathing, like running, the transmutations singing through his blood, eager and flowing, forming under his hands with hardly a thought, and he’ll never regret giving it up, not when he would have traded anything for his brother _ back _.

You don’t forget how to breathe. A fish doesn’t forget how to swim. Edward Elric does not forget alchemy, not even now, dragging himself up to brace his back to the wall, teeth gritted together hard enough to pulse a dull counterpoint to the screaming rawness of his leg.

Edward breathes in deep, the coppery reek of blood thick in the air, and raises his hands, eyes fixed unblinkingly on the still, empty metal shell of armor, forming the lines of the array clear and deliberate in his mind.

The malformed, twisted form in the middle of the circle chokes out its last breath.

_ Alphonse _.

A clap, a slap, that crackling energy of _ change _ glowing golden in his veins, and the world washes away into white void and a toothy, too-wide grin.

  


** _back again so soon, al-che-mist? _ **

  


_________ 

  


Ed wakes up slumped against the wall to Truth’s delighted laughter ringing in his ears and his brother’s worried face.

Face. Al’s face. Al’s ten-year old face which could _ make faces _.

“Oh good,” Ed said, blinking rapidly, feeling more than a little light-headed and also sort of cold and dizzy and strangely distant, “I was hoping that would work. again.”

Al was talking, and he was kind of really freaked-out looking and his hands were sort of hovering around like he was scared to touch- he kept looking at them too, sort of disbelievingly and _ haa, _ Al had human hands and a human face and a human _ everything _ and he wasn’t stuck in the armor, take _ that _, Truth, or fate, or whatever. Whatever. Thinking was really hard right now. So was hearing. Ed didn’t actually know what Al was trying to say because he kept hearing the noises but they didn’t sound like words and everything was going really quiet-

Static flooded his mind, and drowned out everything.

  


______ 

  


It’s a quiet eternity in which Ed’s not anywhere, really. Just slowly drifting, not quite on the edge of consciousness, so slowly he’s not sure how long he’s been blinking slowly up at the off-white ceiling when he realizes he’s awake.

It’s a very numb sort of awake, distant and detached, and he can’t feel his body in a way that his mind connects with the _ really strong _sort of painkillers he ends up on when he does something he usually ends up being yelled at for. He idly wonders what he broke this time, and hopes it wasn’t his arm again. His head feels like it wouldn’t hold up under an attack by a furious Winry.

He can’t really pick up his head or move his body, so he just sort of tilts his head and lets it loll to the side, looking through bleary eyes for a flash of silver- Al would know, he’d be able to tell him what happened and just how concussed he is this time-

_ Wait. _

Ed freezes, staring blankly at the wall. No, that’s not right. Al’s not in the armor anymore, they won, the Promised Day was a mess on all levels but they _ won _ and Al’s painfully thin and weak and Ed’s got an empty aching spot somewhere in his chest and about three pounds of shrapnel in his arm- _ which he got back _ , because Al was an _ idiot _\- but Al was back to normal and everything was worth it-

But no, no, wait, that still wasn’t right- Al was okay, Al had gone through a lot of physical therapy and very careful introductions of food to his starved system, and the cuts left over from the surgery to get the metal out of Ed’s arm were long gone, the faint remainders blending in with the thick band of permanent scars from getting the automail installed in the first place-

That was _ still _wrong- what was-

His eyes landed on the table against the wall, the familiar wallpaper, and it hit him hard enough he felt the drugged haze recede slightly from the edges of his head.

_ Oh _.

Very, very deliberately, Ed put all of his not-inconsiderable willpower to the task of lifting his left arm- increasing the effort put into the movement by the act of scrunching his face into what was probably the weakest glare he’d put out in years- dragging it slowly up his chest, inching across to the other side of his collarbone-

His fingers enountered skin. His right shoulder. 

Unbandaged. Whole. 

Ed still couldn’t really feel his face much at the moment, but he knows there’s a grin on his face regardless, a little flicker of triumph warming his chest.

He did it. _ He did it _.

But wait.

The grin fades.

Did he?

He can’t remember- He was delirious for a while after he lost his arm and leg before- had Al been nearby? Or had Granny banned him from the room- that was only for the surgery though, wasn’t it- 

Cold panic steals away the warmth. 

_ What if he messed up _ \- what if he hadn’t gotten Al back- if that had just been a blood-loss-inspired hallucination- if he forgot how to transmute- but Truth had taken the toll, hadn’t it- it _ had to have _ \- but how would he be at the Rockbells if he hadn’t at least gotten Al’s soul- he was at the Rockbells, right? No, he had to be, he knew this house better than his own- but _ where was _-

“Al,” the word scraped thickly out his mouth, raw and cottony, but it was a word- “Al?”

Nothing, nobody was coming, _ what has he done _ \- “ _ AL! _”

The door creaked, and Ed couldn’t tell anything from the footsteps over his heart pounding, trying to crane his head to see, gasping at the effort and trying to shove by it regardless- he was only down a leg this time like he was going to let that stop him-

“Ed?!” Winry. “You’re- wait, no!”

Ed had grabbed at the fuel of his desperation with both hands and used it to try to lurch upright- sometimes Al had stayed at the door, peeking in while Granny and Winry had checked on him, he needed to find- “Al. Where’s Al?!”

“Ed, stop! Granny!” And Winry was standing over him, hair shorter, so much younger, eyes wide- “Al’s okay! He’s sleeping, you’ve been out for two days- Ed?”

_ Al’s okay _

_ Al’s okay? _

Relief was cool soothing wave that swamped his mind, leaving his arms weak as jelly, and Ed sank back. “Sleeping?” he asked dazedly.

_ Sleeping- he can sleep. I did it right. I _ ** _did it right_ **. 

Winry licked her lips, glancing at the door. “Yes, he- Ed, what did you _ do _?” she suddenly dropped to a whisper, leaning in closer, “Al- we couldn’t tell- what you said- did you-”

She stopped, pressed her hands to her face, inhaling sharp and deep, before letting them drop and looking him dead in the eye. 

“Ed, did you travel back in time too?”

______________ 

“Oh, _ Brother _,” was the first thing out of Al’s mouth as soon as he ducked into Ed’s room, early morning light trickling in through the windows, Winry running into him as he stopped short, visibly glancing from Ed’s face to the hidden remainder of his leg and back again.

“Hey, I look better than last time, don’t I?” Ed demanded, not even pretending like he wasn’t practically devouring the sight of a young, flesh-and-blood Al moving and talking and breathing like a starving man with a feast.

It was like the novelty of Al being flesh was new all over again- and it wasn’t just him. Winry was doing the same, sneaking glances with a glint of wonder and surprise in her eyes, like she expected to see metal and was caught off guard every time he stayed the same. Al kept touching things, running his fingers lightly over the grain of the doorframe, the hems of his clothes, his hair, his own arm, almost absently, as if he didn’t realize he was doing it.

“You still don’t look like the picture of health,” was Winry’s contribution, ducking around Al to check the tangle of wires and tubes Ed was very carefully ignoring that was… _ connected _… to his arms in all different places. “Heavy blood loss and loss of limb is heavy blood loss and loss of limb, no matter how you phrase it. How’s your pain level?”

“Fine,” Ed griped, slouching back against the tilted back of the bed, turning his head but watching Al slide into the room in the corner of his eye. “Granny already handled the meds.” Al was hooking two chairs and dragging them over.

Winry rolled her eyes. “I know she did, but you’re on a lighter dose this morning. We have room to up it if you need it.”

“It’s good.” Ed waved dismissively as Al sat, Winry grabbing a handful of blankets before taking her own seat and distributing them. “I want to be able to think.”

… he was maybe lying. A little bit.

Just a little! It wasn’t _ that bad _. Distracting, kind of, the way it was pulsing along with his heart. But it was a dull sort of pain that should be fine as long as he doesn’t move, touch, or otherwise think about his leg. Which he was doing his utmost best to do. Over half a decade’s experience of working through physical discomfort came in handy sometimes.

“When did you wake up?” Al asked, drawing his knees up and wrapping a blanket around himself, rubbing the edge between his fingers before tucking his hands inside.

“Uh? Like… an hour ago? I think?” Ed frowned, glancing out the window at the sunrise. “You?”

“Ten minutes ago. Granny wouldn’t let us in until we ate something.” Al pulled the blanket closer. “... So. Time travel?”

Ed grimaced. “_ Time travel _,” he confirms, somewhat helplessly.

_____

  


As it turns out, Ed was not the first _ or _ the last of the three of them to wake up and find himself in a smaller body.

It took about half and hour of bickering for them to get past the topic of the _ existence _ of time travel in the first place, Granny poking her head in three times throughout, but they ended up at the subject of _ when _ they all… ‘woke up’, for lack of better term.

“When Al was at the door with you,” Winry said, “it took a moment for me to realize something was off, but as soon as it hit me Al was _ human _ I felt like someone hit me with a lead pipe.”

_ Al _ had actually woken up before Ed. “Right in the middle of being pulled apart by the Gate, actually,” he rubbed at the back of his head. “I saw you reaching for me, and then Truth, and… nothing, until I woke up in the middle of the floor and I could _ feel _ it.” Al glanced quickly at Ed, and Ed knew exactly what he was about to say before he did. “Ed… your alchemy. My body and soul were in the same place, and… did you-?”

“Traded it,” Ed confirmed, a flicker of smug satisfaction kindling back to life at the thought. “Wasn’t sure it would work because I’d already done it before, but old body, old Gate, Truth accepted the trade and here we are.”

Al’s shoulders slumped slightly, and um, no. Ed narrowed his eyes.

They weren’t doing this again. Absolutely not.

“It’s a good thing I woke up right then,” he added, deliberately light, “if I hadn’t, I’d be down _ two _ limbs _ and _ probably my Gate on top of that. Think Mustang still would have tried to recruit me then?”

“You wouldn’t have been missing your Gate,” Al said, looking more at his knees than anyone in the room. “The trade only worked because my body and soul were still together. You wouldn’t have been able to take my body back if I was separate.”

Crap, that didn’t help. Who had knocked Al out of the misplaced guilt he had had for Ed’s alchemy anyway?! Had it been that short Xingese girl with the weird cat? Ed bets it was the Xingese girl and her weird cat. Al had been acting funny about her for like a year. That had to be it. 

“But there’s something important here we’re missing!” Ed blurted, desperately racking his brain with an awkward smile pasted on his face. How to make Al stop guilting himself, argh, this had always been one of the few things where it came to Al he was never able to help much without making it worse _ why _. What can lift the mood, come on, upside of changing things around that Al would actually see as an upside-

… oh. _ Oh _!

“Changing things,” Ed breathed, looking at Al, wide-eyed, then down at his hands. “Al- _ you’re not in the armor _.”

It worked- Al perked up, light back in his eyes, but Ed was more distracted by the sheer _ magnitude _ of the possibility here- “I know,” Al said, “right after I realized what you did, I thought-”

“-Nina,” Ed finished, Al nodding. _ Nina _ . Even if they saved her, they might never forget her first fate- but if they could _ change it _...

“Mr. Hughes,” Winry added, pinking slightly when they looked at her and sliding down in her seat slightly. “... It was one of the first things I thought about. I think everyone has moments they think about this sort of thing, don’t they?”

“Greed’s chimera friends,” Al said quietly, a hand touching his chest. “They didn’t deserve what happened to them. And- Ed, I know you always got mad when we got sent to places and there was a crazy alchemist or bad person hurting people, but... we still helped a lot of people that way.”

“I know,” Ed made a face, sinking back further against the mattress and mentally trying to connect dots. _ Arg, _ what he wouldn’t give for his old notes! “Most of those sort of started blurring together, to be honest. Do you remember….” he waved an arm aimlessly, not sure if he was trying to indicate _ when _ or _ where _ or both.

“Not really, “ Al sighed. “I remember Liore- that mining town, too- uhm… There were a few times we were in Central or East City and there was someone causing trouble, wasn’t there? And that train?”

“Nothing ever really happened around here unless you two dropped in,” Winry sighed, chin in her hands. “I never paid attention to the dates past recording the work. I wish I had. Oh!” She perked up. “I know exactly when I signed the apprentice contract with Mr. Garfield, though! Remember, Mr. Dominic’s grandchild was born just about a week before that!”

“We’re just going to have to wing it,” Ed decided, frowning. “Just visit towns and see what’s going on. We always found the crazies by asking about the Stone, didn’t we? That’s what everything always seemed to revolve around, anyway.”

“It should lead us to-” Al cut himself off, glancing quickly at Winry, who raised an eyebrow. “... tooo… where we need to go?” He finished weakly.

“I know you don’t like telling me about when you plan to get into the sort of trouble that got you hurt all the time back then, but that was probably the worst try yet,” Winry informed him.

Granny, very thankfully, picked that moment to stick her head in again. Not so thankfully, she took one look at Ed and started radiating displeasure. “Alright, that’s more than enough. Ed needs to rest, everybody out. Winry, go and take a nap, girl, don’t think I didn’t notice your light on all night. Al, go and at least sit out on the porch, get some fresh air.”

Winry’s cheeks pinked at getting caught out, almost stumbling over her own chair on her way to standing up and scrambling for the blanket as it fell off her shoulders, and wow Ed was off his game, how did he not notice the circles under her eyes were so dark until now? 

… probably because he was kind of tired and really starting to feel the ache everywhere now, and seeing his brother whole and human and the whole time-travel thing was a good distraction but the promise of painkillers were starting to look pretty good around now. 

“_ Al _. Your brother will be fine. Go. Stretch your legs. There’s leftovers in the kitchen. Why don’t you fix a plate for Ed?” Granny vanished back around the corner, muttering to herself. Ed caught the edge of “Now, where did I leave…?” before she was out of earshot.

Al got up slowly. “I don’t think she really knows how to deal with us,” he said, lingering. “I think she was expecting… more us like the first time this happened. I don’t think you were even supposed to be this coherent yet. I remember you weren’t really… there, for a while.”

“Things are a lot better already, this time around,” Ed pointed out, trying to shift his shoulders to a better position. “I lost way more blood last time, for one. And we already know the truth about Human Transmutation and know there’s things we need to go out and do. I just need a leg this time, and then we’re _ set _.” He grinned at Al, as bright as he could make it. 

“... Even without Alchemy?”

Ed gave _ that _ his best scoff. “Come on. You doubting my ability to wreck a total jerkwad’s day with just my fists?” Sure, Alchemy would make it a hell of a lot easier, but eh. He’d make it work. “It’s not going to be a problem, Al, really. You can take up the role of traveling clapping alchemist this time, and I’ll be the kick-ass brother that goes around knocking out the teeth of idiots with god-complexes. Okay?”

“... okay, brother.” The smile tugging at the corners of Al’s mouth wasn’t entirely sincere, but Ed would take it, keeping up the smile as Al picked his way across the room, obeying Granny’s order. 

But then Al paused at the door, reluctance in the set of his body. “Oh- Brother, there’s one more thing- I- you should probably know…”

“Okay?” Ed blinked. “What’s up?”

Al hesitated, hand slowly sliding down the doorframe to pluck almost nervously at the hem of his shirt. “Well- you were unconscious, you know? And me and Winry, we found out that we had both woken up back in time but we couldn’t ask you if you had too, even though it seemed like it, and Granny didn’t have any idea what we were talking about, so we were wondering _ why _ and… It’s not like we could have called the Gen- I mean, the Colonel, or anyone we hadn’t met yet.”

Ed made a face. “Ugh. if he has he’s going to be _ such a pain _ . Bet you anything he’ll be griping about his lost ranks and blaming me for them. _ At it again Fullmetal- _ What? What’s that face for?” Ed eyed Al suspiciously. 

That had not been the usual face Al wore whenever Ed talked about Mustang. The usual face was amused tolerance with a side of eye-rolling. _ This _ had been more of a pained grimace. Like Al had been _ going _ for the usual face but wasn’t quite able to get it.

Al took a very deep, bracing breath, and said “I couldn’t call anyone we _ hadn’t met yet. _”

It took a moment, Ed staring blankly while gears ticked in his mind, until it clicked and he felt the color drain from his face. “You didn’t. Alphonse, tell me you didn’t.”

Alphonse did not rush to reassure his one and only brother that he did, in fact, not. Instead, that grimace came back, and Ed felt dread coil in his gut like a snake.

“I’m sorry!” came out of Al’s mouth in a burst, “I forgot- I sort of panicked and, um… Teacher’s...”

“Pissed?” Ed finished faintly, and Al’s nod was pure misery. “She…”

“She’s coming _ here _ ,” Al mumbled into his hands. “It doesn’t seem like she time-traveled, and she’s _ pissed _ , and she’s _ going to kill us _ because I accidentally let it slip you were hurt and then I had to say _ how _ and it’s impossible to lie to her…”

“We’re _ dead _ ,” Ed moaned, grabbing at his hair, before a horrific thought hit him and he sat bolt upright, eyes wide, completely ignoring his body’s protest. “... Oh. Oh no. She’s coming here- Al. _ Al _ . _ She’s not the only person coming here _.”

Al frowned. “What? I don’t-” ….Aaaand it hit him. His eyes slowly widened. “Oh. _ Oh _.”

The two brothers stared at each other, both minds nearly blank with horror.

“This is going to be _ so bad _,” Al whispered, breaking the moment of silence.

Ed nodded in grim agreement.


	2. the arrival of death

Death arrived at the Rockbell house two days later, the sky grey and misty, with two suitcases, her husband, and an aura of darkness and doom in tow.

In a sickroom, two brothers fret themselves silly waiting for her.

“She’s checking out the house,” Al moaned, “she has to be, she’s taking too long to go from the station to here.” He’s been pacing almost constantly, worrying the edges of his clothing, shredding the hem of one sleeve.

Ed shivered, casting an anxious glance at the shrouded windows. They wouldn’t stop her. Nor would the light, hollow wood of the sickroom door. Nothing could stop Teacher. _ Nothing _ . Which meant that the only thing that was delaying her coming straight here and _ killing _ them was her own decisions. She’s been to the Rockbell house before. She knows _ exactly _where they are.

They’re sitting ducks. And they can’t do anything about it.

If Al hadn’t been out on a grocery run earlier, they wouldn’t have had the advance warning of Al spotting her walking up the main road. Izumi Curtis was in Resembool. She’d gotten off the eight-o'clock train. 

That had been almost two hours ago.

The suspense was almost _ suffocating _.

Ed found himself almost on the edge of wishing she would hurry up and get killing them over with just so it would _ go away _. He was promptly horrified with the very thought and instead insistently shoved his mind back to thinking up increasingly desperate escape plans.

To make everything _ even worse _, Ed, Al, and Winry had put their heads together and worked out that Mustang could end up showing his smirking mug anytime from this very day to maybe about four days from the current date, most likely sooner. Assuming Ed and Al didn’t end up either in shallow graves or being sold as chopped dog meat in the butcher shop, there was absolutely no possible chance Mustang and Izumi would manage to just… conveniently miss each other.

Teacher would _ slaughter _ Mustang. Maybe Hawkeye could put up a fight, but honestly, Edward will always without hesitation put his money on Teacher because _ Teacher doesn’t lose _. 

Al tapped his fingers nervously against the wood of the bedside table as he passed it again, eyes flickering rapidly to every possible entrance. So everywhere, but with a special bias towards the door. It was the weakest point; the most likely route of attack.

…. Waiting was _ so much worse _ than anything else she could do to them. Was this it? Was Teacher leaving them to stew in fear and guilt before she descended on them like a Briggs mountain bear and tore them to pieces on purpose?

… 

“... She’s going to kill us,” Edward moaned hopelessly for about the fifteenth time that day, wilting further down into the bed, exchanging gloomy glances with Al.

“Maybe we can convince her not to kill Mustang?” Al didn’t sound hopeful in the slightest, which spoke volumes as to how realistic the chances of that happening were. And also proving he had a skewed sense of priorities, what the heck Al.

“How about we convince her not to kill _ us _ first?” 

“We’re doomed either way, Brother. If we run, she catches us. If we hide, she catches us. If we stay here, she catches us. At least we could maybe try to avert _ one _ disaster before we die. I don’t want to think about what would have happened if the G- the _ Colonel _ hadn’t been there on the Promised Day.”

“Well for one thing, that creep wouldn’t’ve been able to shove him through the Gate so he could try to eat the sun,” Ed muttered, crossing his arms. “And anyway, if-”

A chill of foreboding shot electric down his spine, something waking up in the back of his brain and screeching in alarm, and in unison, Ed and Al’s heads snapped over to stare, horrified, at the door.

It _ explodes _ open with the sickening _ CRACK _ of splitting, splintering wood.

“_ Hello, my stupid pupils _ ,” hissed out Izumi Curtis, looming in the doorway as shattered wood tumbles to the ground, the fires of her wrath haloing her to turn her into a looming image of horror and _ death, “You have quite a bit of explaining to do.” _

___________ 

Somehow, they’re not dead.

It’s deeply baffling.

“So, your alchemy truly is lost for good, then.” Teacher settles back in the old wooden chair, eliciting a _ creak _ of protest from the worn piece of furniture, a faint frown crinkling her brow. Sig, sitting next to her shoulder, has nothing in particular readable about his face, no real noticeable reaction to the lengthy tale spun in the dining room of the Rockbell house shown on his exterior. But that’s really always been Sig- steady and calm, taking almost everything in stride. It doesn’t stop it from being completely nerve wracking. Al, hovering nearby Ed once more, noticeably has a flash of guilt shoot across his face once more.

Ed’s really got to go find the Xing girl and her weird cat, ASAP. Or hurry up and get a new leg so he can try to pound it into his head that _ Ed doesn’t actually care if he can use alchemy or not as long as Al’s okay, goddamnit! _

“Yeah,” he shrugs, deliberately carelessly, leaning back into his wheelchair. He can actually roll it _ himself _ without going in endless, wobbly circles, which feels weird and also awesome because he never got the hang of one-handed wheeling before. _ This _ time he can get himself to whatever he wants with minimal complications. He’s going to aim for six months therapy time for this leg- Lan-Fan did it, and Ed’s got things to do, places to go, and a strong urge to go hunt down Sho Tucker and break his face.

It’s actually looking like he might live long enough to even do so. He has no idea how, and is honestly expecting a alchemized spear heading right for his face at any moment.

“I can still fight _ if I can get a leg _,” here Ed looked meaningfully at Granny, who grumbled and puffed on her pipe pointedly, “and if I draw circles other people should be able to use them. Al couldn’t use clap alchemy last time for years, but he’s really good at it now.”

“Hm.” the nail of Teacher’s index finger taps at the wooden tabletop. She sighs suddenly. “Time travel. I almost feel I should have seen this coming. All of it.” 

“We were going to try to bring Mom back no matter what,” Al said quietly, not quite looking her in the eye. “We’d been planning it for years, at this point.”

“And maybe, if I had been upfront and told the both of you what happens when you commit the taboo, what it did, perhaps you would have at least gotten wary enough to delay your transmutation long enough for me to catch on and work to prevent this.” She closed her eyes briefly, wearily. 

Then she sighed and dropped her hands to her lap. “Alright then. Alphonse, you’re working one-on-one with me until your brother’s healed and physically able after his surgery to join in.”

“I never said-” Pinako started to argue as Al yelped “Huh?!” and Ed “Wait what?”

“He’s clearly not going to be content with a plain plastic prosthetic, Mrs. Rockbell,” Teacher said. “And they’re planning on being very active and getting into quite a few things our _ wonderful _ military would rather they not. And seeing as neither of you fools plan on collaring yourself, I see no point in releasing you from your apprenticeships. We have entirely too much to do to go wasting any time.”

It took a second. Then-

“Wait, you’re _ helping? _” Ed yelped, Al almost falling over at the same time. Teacher huffed out a breath, tinted with amusement, and folded her arms. “We’re not- you’re?!”

Teacher’s eyebrow arched. “You just told me there’s an immortal creature living underneath Central that plans on killing all of Amestris so it can become a god. Do you _ really _ expect me to sit by?”

… Fair point.

“And part of this is punishment, too,” she admitted freely, cheerfully cracking her knuckles. Al recoiled, inching closer to Ed’s chair. Ed felt the color drain out of his face. “You’re getting lucky, you little punks- You’ve only broken _ one _ of my rules. If you had broken the other…” she trailed off pointedly.

Oh god, you could feel the murder in the air. They’re still dead. They’re so dead. They thought they might have been spared but there is no escape-

-Wait. Ed has at least six month’s grace. _ Al _ is going to have all of Teacher’s attention focused _ solely _ on him, with their misdeeds fresh in Teacher’s mind.

_ Al _ is dead.

Judging by the rapid paling of his face, he just realized this too.

Teacher’s wide, malicious, furious grin grew wider at their horror, until she broke into horrifying laughter at their fear.

Sig calmly sipped his tea behind his wife as she basked in the fearful quaking of her apprentices.

This was almost nostalgic, really. 

Just like old times and all.

Later, once the strongest waves of terror had faded somewhat, Al managed to rally himself enough to ask about something that was, technically, really important. Something they _ really _ should have thought of before.

Ed would just like to say, in his defense, that absolutely every other problem falls to the wayside when you’re confronted with the certain possibility of an angry Teacher descending on you like a ton of bricks in your immediate future.

Not even Father is as scary as Teacher. _ Nothing is scarier than Teacher. _

“... So. Um…” Al ventured, curled up on the couch. Ed craned his neck back to eyeball him, half his brain still bent to focus on poking at Winry where she was fiddling with bolts and metal on the coffee table. “What are we going to do about Colonel Mustang? We… kind of didn’t make a plan at all.”

… Oh. Oh, that’s a thing. That they really didn’t think about at all.

“He wouldn’t try to get Al to sign up as a State Alchemist, would he, if he doesn’t- you know, remember?” Ed frowned, shoving himself back from Winry’s project, much to her relief. “I really don’t remember _ too _ much of that day, but didn’t only bring it up because Al was in the armor? And he’s not, this time,” he added, still unable to stop that fierce glow of pride and joy at the thought. “So even if he didn’t come back like we did, he doesn’t actually have a reason to bring it up, does he?”

Teacher smiled in a very not-nice way. Ed felt himself twitch.

“Oh, don’t worry about _ the Colonel _ ,” Teacher said, terrifyingly airily. “You _ are _ still my students, after all. I’ll be handling that situation.”

Ah.

So Mustang was going to die then.

“... Welp. Guess it’s goodbye to the bastard.”

_ “Ed!” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very short and honestly I don't really like how this chapter turned out, but I've been fighting it for weeks and it's just reached the point I figure I need to just throw it out there and work on the next part
> 
> I love Izumi Curtis and there aren't enough fics out there with her and Sig in them. resulting iiiiin me making her a main character because why not? yes, Izumi's going to be joining the brothers! and they're staying her apprentices because I want to play with that a little!
> 
> EDIT: asdfghjkl I am so heckin bad at remembering to reply to reviews but THANK YOU everyone who was so nice and commented on the first chapter!! def. made me feel better about this little self-indulgent idea lol

**Author's Note:**

> just a heads up- I wrote this first chapter and half of the next one last year. I just found it again buried deep in my docs and I like what bits I have written out enough that I want to explore it more. writing style might change a bit, but I'll be trying to keep it close to the same.
> 
> also this whole thing will be completely self-indulgent, ideally more humorous than serious most of the time, and, sorry, really slow to update because my brain likes to flit from idea to idea like a very easily distracted hummingbird. when will I ever consistently work to complete a chaptered fic? who knows ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


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